


The Station Just Behind You

by wynnebat



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies), Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Family Feels, Ghosts, Horcruxes, Kid Fic, M/M, Magical Shenanigans, Master of Death Harry Potter, Not FBAWTFT 2 Compliant, Post-Movie, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-06
Updated: 2018-07-16
Packaged: 2019-06-06 06:48:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,898
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15189146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wynnebat/pseuds/wynnebat
Summary: Unwilling to fulfill the prophecy if it means killing the horcrux inside him, Harry takes another path and finds himself in 1926. But with a possible future Dark Lord as his ward and a bargain for a new life with stipulations Harry is only learning of after the fact, the past proves just as unpredictable as the present.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Most of this was written for Keira's April 2018 [Rough Trade](http://www.roughtrade.org/) event. I didn't manage to complete the challenge during the challenge month, but better late than never!
> 
> Warning for references to: rape (Merope/Tom Senior), violence/murder/torture (Grindelwald and other dark wizards), child abuse (Dursleys, Barebones).

For someone whose nickname is the Boy Who Lived, Harry still manages to be inordinately surprised by the fact that he lives through his second killing curse. He listens as Dumbledore explains the situation, unable to stop looking around the white wisps of something in the air and the washed out, muted colors of King’s Cross Station. Even the train isn’t as bright as it is in life. There’s something missing here, and it’s not the life and color that he’s never seen the station without.

When Dumbledore stops speaking, Harry quietly says, “Is this what it’s going to feel like? To live without the horcrux?”

“Yes,” Dumbledore says. “I know it must be a relief.”

He can’t stop looking for the something that should be here, but Harry knows he won’t find it again. It’s gone, and it makes no sense, but the hollow feeling in his chest feels as though it will open up into a black hole and take him over. He finally looks back at Dumbledore and doubts that his former headmaster has missed Harry’s shattered expression at his words. Dumbledore doesn’t miss much. Maybe he expects Harry to lie to himself or to Dumbledore. Maybe he expects Harry to tell the truth and be reassured.

“I hate it,” Harry says, but he doesn’t think there’s enough reassurance in the world for how horribly empty he feels. “It feels like I’m half a person now.”

“You are Harry Potter as you should have been,” Dumbledore says, his tone so kind it feels like knives.

Harry snorts. “That Harry Potter never got a chance.” The Harry Potter who could’ve been a happy, well-adjusted young man died with his parents, or maybe the Dursleys starved him out. There is only a man with more scars than he knows what to do with and a lifetime of sacrifice. He’s more selfish than he’s ever been in his life when he says, “I can’t live like this.”

“It isn’t your time to pass. Your parents would never forgive me if I take you with me,” Dumbledore says, his eyes pleading. “You have a destiny, and only part of it is defeating Voldemort. The other part is living the life all these years have done so little to prepare you for: a life of happiness and comfort.”

It would be so nice to believe him, Harry thinks, but his heart is beating into nothingness. Rationally, he knows that his friends are back at Hogwarts, fighting for their lives, and some part of him wants to see them again. To hug Ron and Hermione, to kiss Ginny deeply, to kiss the top of Teddy’s little head. But it’s hard to be rational when he feels like he’s lost a limb.

“Where is it?” Harry asks. “The horcrux.”

Dumbledore frowns and Harry doesn’t think it’s through his former headmaster’s will that a child appears on the bench next to them, swaddled in a green blanket. It’s an ugly thing, pale as anything, eyes red and bloodshot. At least the horcrux still has its nose. When Harry picks it up, it glares at him, but otherwise it barely moves.

Harry can’t take it back with him, for a horcrux cannot exist if Voldemort is to be destroyed. He can’t take it forward with him because Dumbledore will block his path. He can only hold it in this ghostly train station and fight the devastation he feels. It doesn’t make any sense at all, the way he can’t breathe now that a part of him is gone. It’s a part of Voldemort, too, but over the years it’s become Harry’s.

“It’s time, my dear boy.”

“My dear headmaster,” Harry says, his smile is wry. The horcrux tries to copy his expression, but ends up only looking constipated. “I know you don’t have all the answers. I’ve learned that lesson well by now. But I can’t return like this, so please, give me another option.”

Dumbledore is silent for a long moment. “Are positive that this is the path you must take?”

“Yes,” Harry says, holding the horcrux closer to himself.

There’s a certain sadness in Dumbledore’s blue eyes as he motions to the stone wall that leads to what would be the muggle side of Platform 9 & 3/4. “On the other side is another pathway to life that has opened to no one else but you, should you decide to take it. I can’t tell you what lies ahead. Perhaps reincarnation, perhaps something else. There is nothing I can do to prepare you for this.”

“You’ve done what you can,” Harry says, swallowing. His choices: death, life, and the unknown. But hell, he’s a Gryffindor. And he’s Slytherin enough to remember his sense of self-preservation. Harry doesn’t think he can last a year feeling so horrible, let alone a lifetime. “I suppose my next great adventure is just a little more literal than expected.”

“Good luck, Harry,” Dumbledore tells him.

Harry wonders if Dumbledore would have hugged him had he not been holding the horcrux. There’s certainly a wariness behind the twinkle of Dumbledore’s eyes. And yet, he told Harry about the third path instead of forcing him to return to life.

Clutching the horcrux close, Harry starts walking, faster and faster until he’s running for the washed-out brick wall. It’s easier at a run, Mrs. Weasley’s voice rings in his ears. He closes his eyes as he passes through and he drops downward, falling through nothing at all until he is nothing at all.

When he opens his eyes again, there is nothing in his arms, but there is life in front of him. Three women surrounding another woman on a table, franticly calling out to her and to each other. There’s too much blood, Harry thinks, and the youngest woman echoes his thoughts. She notices him as he treads closer to the table.

“Sir, you can’t be in here—”

Harry ignores all three of them, reaching for the woman’s hand to feel her pulse. The woman is still warm, but her heartbeat is gone. His own feels too strong in his chest, like it’s beating for two. There’s a baby in the matron’s arms and Harry can just barely see its pink face, but he can hear its cries. His cries, because this is not a portion of a whole, this is a child, abandoned through death by its mother and held by a woman whose clothes are half a century out of fashion.

“He’s mine,” Harry tells them, the emptiness gone completely from his chest.

The matron is not particularly concerned with who Harry is or how he got into the orphanage, only that he’s willing to take in the child and pay for the mother’s funeral. She places Tom into Harry’s arms and tells him she’s relieved to see the boy’s father step up. Harry doesn’t think they look particularly alike, but they don’t not, either. Tom is tiny, red, wrinkly. He’d obviously been washed by the time Harry arrived, but some of Merope’s blood remains behind one of his ears. He barely looks human, but that’s probably because Harry’s never seen such a young baby up close. Harry has no doubt he will be a cute enough kid soon.

“How do I hold him?” Harry asks, and the matron takes him into her office and answers the rest of his questions. She pulls out some baby formula and shows him how to use it and feed him. The matron is kind, but she doesn’t try to hide how much she wants him to keep the child. It’s a clean place, this orphanage, but Harry sees signs of age everywhere that a good scrubbing can’t erase.

Harry has no idea how to raise a child, but he knows he can’t possibly fuck it up worse than Wool’s Orphanage.

“Can I have a moment with Merope?” he asks when all is said and done and Tom is sleeping in his arms.

“Of course, dear,” the matron says. She clears the room out and closes the doors.

Harry stares down at the body and feels a strange detachment. There is no soul left in Merope Riddle, no life. There is only a corpse. Tom isn’t aware enough to cry over her—although Harry doubts he would anyway—and Harry never knew her. It is the concept that no one will truly grieve Merope that saddens him, not her death.

“I’m sorry,” he still says. For all the things that could’ve never been. “I’ll take care of him.”

The elder wand slips into his hand when he reaches into his pocket, despite not existing before that moment. He feels the stone appear in his other pocket and the cloak fold into his back pocket, shrinking effortlessly to fit. Harry doesn’t know the spell, but when he waves his wand, a beautiful coffin appears. The wood is midnight black and the words Merope Riddle curl around the front. Harry levitates her body inside and places one hand on the wood. With a gust of wind, he is gone.

The graveyard that’s haunted his nightmares is different in early evening. There are less gravestones here in this time, and it’s well cared for. It’s colder than he expected outside, having arrived from May, so Harry casts a warming charm over himself and Tom.

At the end of the line, Harry raises the earth and places the coffin inside, covering it so completely that he can’t tell the patch of earth had been raised at all. A flick of his wand and a gravestone appears, heavy marble landing with a thud onto the ground.

_Merope Riddle, February 1, 1907 - December 31, 1926. A dream lies buried here._

She was only two years older than him.

Tom is awake again in his arms, but quiet, as though the somber graveyard can reach even him.

“I don’t love you,” Harry says, quietly. He stares into Tom’s blue eyes and wonders if they’ll stay that way or if the baby blue will soon fade into the boy’s real eye color. It won’t be red, but Hardy has no idea what color Tom’s eyes originally were. The thought that there is more to Tom Riddle than madness comforts him. “But I will, I think.”

Tom’s soul echoes within him, and it’s an echo he chose this time. Whatever going through that barrier had done—because he isn’t the same, not in magic or in spirit—Harry will embrace it. He asks the wand to guard the grave and a burst of blue hits the area, coating the perimeter before vanishing.

And then there’s just him and Tom in the cold winter air. Harry casts a notice me not around Tom and trudges up the path to Riddle Manor. Cold seeps into him as he remembers everything that had happened here, but he focuses on the differences. The house he approaches is lived in and well lit. The grounds are lifeless in the middle of winter, but they’re tidy.

A maid answers the door only seconds after Harry knocks.

“I’m here to see Tom Riddle,” Harry says. “It’s about Merope.”

The maid’s eyes widen and she steps aside. “Come in, please.”

Harry is led into a sitting room that thankfully isn’t the one he saw Voldemort murder the groundskeeper in. Or maybe it is; everything looks so different inside now that it’s not covered in dust and half eaten by moths. The Riddles keep him waiting, but not for no reason. They’re arguing as they walk down the stairs, a young male voice the loudest but the other two nearly as loud.

Tom senior appears first in the sitting room and scowls as he looks Harry over. Belatedly, Harry realizes his jacket and jeans haven’t seen many good days in months of camping out and being on the run.

“Where is she? Where is Merope?” Tom senior asks as his parents join the room and come to a stop next to him.

Harry stands up, since it doesn’t look like this is going to be a polite conversation. “I’ve come here to tell you that Merope died a few hours ago at an orphanage in London. I’ve buried her in your family’s graveyard.”

“She’s dead?” Tom senior asks, swallowing. He’s so young, his face habitually pale and lacking that smile Harry had seen in Dumbledore’s pensieve. His eyes are a very pale blue, the same as Mrs. Riddle’s. “How— she’s a witch, how could she die?”

“Witches and wizards can die just as easily as anyone else,” Harry replies, his voice quiet. He knows that all too well. “Merope had been unwell for a very long time and homelessness left her with few options.”

“She could’ve just ensnared some other poor man,” Tom senior says, snidely.

He quiets when a man who can only be Tom senior’s father puts his hand on his shoulder. “Our graveyard, you say?”

Harry inclines his head. “She married your son. She deserves that much, at least.”

Mr. Riddle purses his lips but doesn’t disagree. Harry’s glad he put a ward around the grave, because he doesn’t doubt it would be gone by the end of the week if he hadn’t.

“Is that all you wished to tell us, mister...” Mrs. Riddle trails off.

“Harry. Just Harry. And no— I came to ask if you wanted to be a part of your son’s life.” He directs his question toward Tom senior, because it’s his opinion that matters, not the thoughtful look that enters Mrs. Riddle’s eyes.

Tom senior faces his parents with a desperate look. “Mother, no. No. I won’t have him.”

A hushed discussion follows. Harry turns slightly toward the fireplace, as the Riddles don’t seem to want his input. The painting on the mantle is a beautiful scene of the English countryside. For all Harry knows, it may be of the land around Little Hangleton. He knows what the Riddles’ answer will probably be, but there’s a possibility of them surprising him. If the Riddles actually want Tom, Harry supposes he can find a way to insert himself into the household. Maybe as a nanny, as odd as it would seem for them to have a male one. Harry knows he could’ve simply taken the boy and started a new life for them, but the part of Harry that remembers being young and desperate to have blood family who loved him, that part of him knows he should at least try.

Try in vain, he thinks as Tom senior clears his throat and says, “I know what you must think of me, but I can’t take him. I’ll never be able to look at him without seeing her and she— she was evil. I don’t care how much she loved me. She took a year of my life away from me, ruined my reputation, left me no choice but to cast out my own wife.”

“We will be amenable to providing you with some funds to raise the child,” Mrs. Riddle says, sharing a look with her son that speaks volumes. It’s not too late to change your mind, she all but says.

Mr. Riddle has less interest in keeping a link to Tom senior’s first marriage. His voice is firm as he says, “It will be a one-time payment that you may use as you wish, but keep in mind that you won’t receive any more from us. After today, that child has no ties to this family. I won’t have you or him interfere with the proper family my son will soon have.”

“You don’t have to worry about that. I was already planning to care for him,” Harry says, shaking his head. But, well, he is fifty years out of time with the deathly hallows as his only possessions. “But if you want to pay me off, I wouldn’t say no.”

He leaves the Riddle home with a very sizable sum enclosed in a leather briefcase. When Harry glances back, he sees Tom senior watching him from the large window to the front of the house, but after a moment Tom senior walks away. A part of Harry understands him. He wouldn’t have ever been able to forgive someone who’d used a potion as powerful as Amorentia on him. And yet the whole story of Tom’s origins is full of pitiful people. Tom senior, potioned and raped and furious. Merope, abused all her life and desperate. The Gaunts, inbred and racist and proud. It’s such a mess.

His arms are tired after carrying Tom for so long, but Harry has one more stop to make. The Gaunt shack is almost unnoticeable amidst the trees, but Harry finds his way based on luck and a year old memory of a memory. No one answers his knock and he doesn’t hear anyone in the house, so he quietly casts _alohomora_ and steps inside. The elder wand lights up the room, casting shadows over the dusty, grimy furniture inside. It’s obviously been a long time since anyone has stepped foot here. Harry can’t remember if Tom’s uncle and grandfather are still alive, but the state of their home can only mean they’re dead or still in Azkaban.

“Your other legacy,” Harry says to Tom. When Tom begins to fuss, he holds him close and takes one last look around. “Blood family is probably overrated anyway. I never knew my parents and I turned out alright. Desperately attached to your soul and now the master of death, but no one’s perfect.”

He makes no sound as he disapparates from the Gaunt shack, never to return.


	2. Chapter 2

Gringotts is a lot less intimidating now that Harry has successfully broken inside it once. Hermione had done the lion’s share of the work and they hadn’t exactly gotten away with it, but Harry still chalks it up to one of their best successes. As he walks through the entrance, the white stone walls seem to gleam accusingly at him and out of the corners of his eyes he can see a dozen goblins walking around the huge corridor and peering suspiciously at the patrons. Their teeth are sharp and their blades are sharper. Harry stifles his urge to look smugly at them.

He has a kid now who he really can’t teach his bad habits to. And flirting with danger with a side helping of anger issues is the last thing Tom needs to learn from him. Tom is attached to his front with a sling contraption that’s more magic than cloth, facing outward because the kid would never stand for not being able to look around and babble at things. He’s just over six months old now, bigger and chubbier and human-esque instead of the mandrake he’d resembled for his first week of life.

Tom babbles a little, reaching for something in front of him, and Harry pats the top of his little head. There’s hair there now, light and fine, tickling at his fingers.

“Those are goblins,” he says, nodding at the tellers, from whom they are only three customers away. “They’re in charge of all the money in the wizarding world.” When Tom points, Harry takes his hand, tickling Tom’s palm as he says, “And thus we don’t levitate them to us because we want a closer look.”

The customer in front of them huffs a laugh, turning to look behind at them. Her eyes widen when she sees Tom strapped to Harry’s chest. Harry thinks maybe it’s the sling, because he’s never seen witches carry their kids in the manner (maybe it’s rude or unfashionable or something, but how else is he supposed to carry a kid around?), but she only says, “Very precocious, is he?”

Harry hums. “Too much so.” He tries not to look stupidly proud of the kid, but it’s hard when he’s so familiar with Tom’s red-cheeked, focused look when he’s trying to get something to levitate to him. It’s fucking adorable. He’d never understood why Molly and Arthur decided have so many kids until Tom giggled at him for the very first time and Harry abruptly wanted six more of them for when Tom grew up into the grouchy little thing he’d been in Dumbledore’s memory. But, honestly, “It was a pain and a half. He levitated our muggle neighbor and I had to wait until the obliviators came and gave us a stern talking to.”

Or rather, he’d asked his wand to deal with the problem and prayed to Merlin’s ghost that dear old Mrs. Wilson wouldn’t end up like Lockhart.

“You might consider moving to a fully wizarding area,” the witch says. “It’s easier on the kids, or so I’ve heard. I’m Mary McGonagall.”

And there it is, the reason Harry spent six months in the muggle world before returning to this one. Early on, he’d visited to buy some magical baby formula, book, and toys, but it had been quick. He’d stayed long enough to exchange a bit of money and shop, and that’s it, not wanting to chance running into the parents and grandparents of the people he once knew. He misses them, all of them, especially Hermione and the Weasleys. He doesn’t regret his decision, but... it’s an ache inside him, lessening over these six months but still there all the same.

It’s one thing to realize to himself how irrational he’d been at the very thought of living without Tom’s soul inhabiting his plane of existence. It’s another to be faced with human being whose descendants’ lives he’d affected by vanishing off through a portal to the past.

“I’m Harry,” Harry says in reply, trying not to wonder if this woman is his former professor’s mother or aunt. “And this is Tom.”

Before he can ask her about wizarding housing districts, it’s Mary’s turn at the counter and minutes later another counter opens up for service.

“What can Gringotts do for you?” The goblin behind the counter is exactly as surly as any goblin Harry’s ever met. It’s very comforting.

Harry slips off his backpack and places it onto the counter. “I’d like to open an account and convert these to galleons.” He’d considered just staying in the muggle world, but honestly, Mary isn’t wrong. Tom is too magical, too curious to stay there and Harry does him no favors by staying away just because he doesn’t want to face his ghosts.

“The minimum deposit to set up an account is ten galleons. You’re aware of our exchange rate?” The goblin asks, glancing down into the bag.

“I am,” Harry replies. He’s also aware that the goblins are the only ones who’ll take muggle money in all of the wizarding world. “I’ll take half with me and leave the other half in the vault.”

“Very well then,” the goblin says as he pulls out a drawer on his side of the counter. The bills levitate out of the bag in a curve and settle in the drawer, while simultaneously galleons begin to float out of the drawer and into the bag. Once that task is done and Harry takes the backpack back, the goblin gives him an evaluating look. “Do you have an open account with Gringotts, here or at another branch?”

“No,” Harry says. It’s the truth, after all. Here in the past, Harry’s barely a blip on the wizarding world’s radar. It’s rather nice, even though it can be lonely. Tom is adorable but not scintillating company. His babbling leaves a lot to be desired.

“Hooktooth!” the goblin calls out.

Harry can’t see anyone over the tall counter, but the goblin begins to speak to someone in the goblin language. Tom perks up interestedly at this and tries to imitate the words, unable to grasp the guttural sounds but trying anyway. After about a minute, the goblin turns back to Harry and points to Harry’s left. “Past the counters and to the green room. Hooktooth will make sure you fill out the paperwork correctly.”

Belatedly, Harry remembers the world runs on bureaucracy and sighs as he heads off to where he’d been directed to. The huge front hall of Gringotts seems endless, but eventually Harry reaches the end of the counters and sees a green door, in front of which another goblin stands. His leather armor is different from the other goblin’s in ways Harry can’t quite put a point on, not knowing much about armor, but he’s pretty sure he knows why the goblin at the counter was able to order Hooktooth around. Hooktooth is about the same height as the rest of the goblins, but he’s thinner, the kind of thin Ron had been when he’d shot up like a weed in fourth year. His head looks too big for the rest of his body and the set of his lips is more moody teenager than regular surly goblin.

“Hooktooth?” Harry asks. At the young goblin’s nod, he introduces himself and Tom.

“Greetings, future Gringotts customers,” the goblin says, the words sounding rehearsed.

With a wave of Hooktooth’s hand, the door swings open and slams shut once Harry has entered. The room is less than a tenth of the size of the front hall, its ceiling lower and its walls less decorated. A stone table with benches on each side sits at the center of the room. Hooktooth takes one side and Harry the other. Harry watches with dismay as Hooktooth produces a huge scroll from one of his pockets.

“You will read this and then you will sign,” Hooktooth tells him.

The goblin flicks the seal off the scroll and it unrolls two yards down the table. Harry stares at it with horror for a long moment, but the memory of Hermione telling him to study prompts him to focus on the words. The font is on the small end but the blocky cursive is readable even for someone of Harry’s unscholarly nature. It is slow-going and Harry stops to ask Hooktooth about various terms every few minutes. He feels very nostalgic about his old Gringotts account, for which he’d never had to deal with any of this nonsense. A voice that sounds like Hermione’s asks him if ignorance is really better. He finds that his account will be closed if he knowingly stores any animals in his vault and that goblins are stingy with their interest rates. Near the end of the document is a section that calls for the true name of the person signing it, otherwise the magic of the contract will not see it as valid.

Harry pauses, reading the section over again before glancing at Hooktooth. He figures he may as well say it, since the goblins are serious about their security and Harry doesn’t like the thought of keeping his galleons in a shoebox for the rest of his life. “I’m not a British citizen. I don’t have a legal name here.”

“Your true name is who you are at the core of your magic,” Hooktooth says. The idea is a lot more conceptual than Harry would’ve expected from the logical goblins. “All magic users have a name that resonates within them. Most often, it is the name one has worn since childhood.”

Harry opens his mouth to ask a question, but he closes it as he realizes he doesn’t need to ask a single thing, not really. Harry’s never seen his own birth certificate. For all he knows, his real name is Hadrian and he has half a dozen middle names. But at his core, he’s never been anyone but Harry James Potter. He’s never seen himself as anyone other than who he is. He’s used polyjuice multiple times, he’s had people in his head and _imperio_ cast on him, but he’s never lost himself. He’s Harry Potter, seeker, glasses, knobby knees, Boy Who Lived. He’s not a Peverell for all that he holds the death stick and calling himself a Riddle would give him hives. He’s not a Weasley or a Dursley or an Evans. No matter which role he takes, he’ll always be the boy who sat under the sorting hat and told it no, the boy who pulled a sword out of a hat, the man who held a horcrux in his arms in the afterlife. It’s oddly comforting, even if Harry would rather not deal with the Potters of this time.

 _Harry James Potter,_ he signs, and the parchment glows green. It’s done.

Hooktooth rolls the parchment up, glancing down at the name and then back at Harry with slightly more interest behind his bored gaze. “Will you be requesting your account to be associated with the main Potter line?”

“No,” Harry says. “I’d rather they didn’t know anything about this.” _About me,_ it’s plain and clear.

Hooktooth scoffs. “Wizards. We take the privacy of our customers very seriously. If your last name reaches the Potters, it will not be through us. Come with me. I need your blood.”

With those somewhat unsettling words, he picks up the scroll and waves open the door again. Harry follows him out into the front hall. There are more people here now that the rest of society is waking up. Harry had arrived here in the early morning, already awake with Tom’s cries in his ears, but now there are dozens of people waiting in lines or being serviced. What’s odd is the mass of people entering through the doors, almost tripping over each other in their haste to get inside. Within minutes, there are more people in Gringotts than Harry has ever since inside these stone walls, so many that he and Hooktooth are hard-pressed to make their way through to the entrance to the vault tunnels.

“What’s going on?” Harry asks the nearest person.

“There’s a dementor loose in Diagon Alley,” the wizard exclaims. “Diagon Alley of all places! I always knew this administration would be the death of our society but dementors! Here, instead of guarding Azkaban as they should be.”

“Those things should be destroyed,” Harry murmurs thoughtfully, his voice mild. He isn’t thinking of the way dementors had attacked him in his third and fifth years or the way they’d almost stolen Sirius’ soul. He’s not thinking of anything, really, except for those words and the complete and utter certainty he feels as he says them. He can sense the dozens of souls inside the dementor even as it leaves his vision. Those souls don’t belong in the world of the living, and yet they’re trapped in the belly of one of those unnatural beasts. They need someone to ferry them to the afterlife.

The man makes a disagreeing sound. “Although I admit this is _incredibly_ inconvenient, that is not up to you.”

_Oh, but it is._

The thought settles inside him with a push from something much greater than the human being that is Harry Potter. It is, quite definitely, up to him. It doesn’t have to be today, it doesn’t have to be tomorrow, but one day Harry will have to deal with them. As far as deals with Death go, even unknowing deals because Harry hadn’t known what he was agreeing to when he’d gone through that barrier, it’s not a bad one at all. Harry has no sympathy for the vile creatures.

Except, he has the dawning realization that dementors are only the beginning. Death has a foothold in this world now, and it’s time for the balance to right itself in a way only the master of all of Death’s hallows can do.

 _Master_ of death, my ass, Harry thinks.

He isn’t scared. He hasn’t been frightened of anything being able to do him actual harm. After Voldemort, the rest of the villains of the world are just a nuisance. Harry elbows his way through the crowd, forcing his way to the grand entrance doors.

“What are you _doing_?” Hooktooth calls out after him. He follows in his stead, his path easier with Harry in the lead to make room for them. “You haven’t finished creating your vault.”

“I’ll be back! You should stay here.”

Hooktooth, of course, does not. “Are you trying to get yourself killed, client?”

“I’ll be fine,” Harry replies, finally breaking through the crowd and finding himself on the steps leading up to the bank.

Diagon Alley stands before him, eerily empty. Not a single soul remains in the alley; probably for the best, considering the soul-sucking creature running about. Shop doors are closed firmly shut, window displays dimmed as if to discourage the dementor from noticing them. Harry ignores the witches and wizards brave and curious enough to peek out of the windows. He’s a man on a mission. A mission given to him by manipulative forces outside of his control, but Harry can admit to himself that he would’ve done this anyway. He can’t in good conscience allow people to cower in fear when there’s a dementor on the loose.

Hooktooth walks at his side with a very disapproving expression. Tom is bright-eyed and curious as he strains away from Harry’s chest. It worries Harry that he doesn’t feel worry. Harry walked through the embrace of Death; Tom did so too, the horcrux held securely in Harry’s arms. They are no strangers to Death. It will not take them, especially when there is still so much more to do.

As he walks on, Harry feels a prickle of cold air hit his skin. Hooktooth’s expression hardens. Cold seeps into the streets, unnatural and unnerving in a way that Harry is unfortunately so very familiar with. At the back of his mind, he hears a high-pitched, horrible laugh. It’s less important than the fact that Tom is warm and alive in front of him, a whole future before him that has a chance of turning out better than the first time around.

Ahead of him, the dementor appears, a looming, hooded figure shrouded in mist

“It will be drawn to the areas with a greatest number of souls,” Hooktooth says. Still, he pulls out a dagger that is aglow with the same white as a Patronus and holds it extended. “If you did not come here with an actual plan, get behind me. If we’re lucky, it will ignore us in favor of heading toward Gringotts.”

“I’ve never been much of a planner, but I’m not defenseless,” Harry replies. The air is colder now. Goosebumps travel down Harry’s shoulders. His hands are steady as he raises the elder wand. “Expecto Patronum!”

Prongs bursts into existence, galloping around them once before he settles in front of Harry in a ready to charge position. A moment ticks by as the dementor and Prongs stare at each other. And then it comes: Prongs bursts into movement, galloping after the dementor as the creature tries to run. Harry and Hooktooth run after both. Prongs is magnificent as he corners the dementor into an alley. Harry admires its skill even as his mother pleads with Voldemort at the back of his head. He sees the moment that Prongs finally catches up to it, pinning the dementor against the brick wall with his antlers.

You know what to do, Harry thinks, but it’s not him, not really. It’s madness, the impulse that overtakes him, but Harry’s had worse plans. If he doesn’t do anything, the dementor might find a way to flee Prongs’ hold. Hooktooth makes a sound of shock as for the second time in his life, Harry shoves his wand into a creature’s face.

The deathstick slides under the dementor’s hood and pierces its mouth. The dementor begins to scream around the wand, high-pitched and horrible. Harry pulls it out, his wand heavier than before. When he sees the tip exit the dementor, he realizes why: there is a white orb attached to it. As the dementor falls onto the ground, the thing inside fading into nothingness until only the tattered gray cloak remains. The orb falls into Harry’s hand, its pressure gentle and unthreatening as it dissolves into the air. Or not the air, no, Harry thinks, watching the ball of souls fade away and something within him growing satisfied. The souls are returning to their rightful place in the afterlife, carried by Death and Magic until it’s time for their next great adventure.

Tom’s little hands tug at Prongs, finding him more corporeal than any patronus has the right to be. With a smile, Harry does too, stroking his hand along Prongs’ side. “Thank you, my friend.”

He knows in his head that Prongs is only an extension of himself, but in his heart Prongs will always be its own creature, a memory come to life. As his Patronus disappears, Harry looks behind himself to find that not only does Hooktooth stand next to him with an inscrutable expression, but so does a whole contingent of goblins. They all wield similar blades to Hooktooth’s, the glow of the blades vanishing as the presence of the dementor disappears. Even the cold has vanished from the area.

There’s no way he can convince them that what they’d seen was normal. You don’t kill dementors. You hurt them and watch them flee, or you trap them and run while their cold magic chews through the trap. There’s a reason dementors are so feared in the wizarding world. No way to kill them, often nowhere to run if the dementor reduces you to a hopeless wreck.

“Sorry if you wanted to study it,” Harry says, since the goblins still haven’t put away their daggers and have started talking between themselves in Gobbledegook.

The goblins quiet only when other voices approach. Harry stiffens, realizing that the aurors must have been chasing the dementor from the other side. The last thing he wants is the ministry getting too curious about him. He likes his nice, quiet life. Harry steps into the shadow of the building and hopes the aurors don’t look too closely. He meets Hooktooth’s questioning look and shrugs, unwilling to explain himself. The goblin unsheathes his blade again and makes a z-sign in the air. Before Harry can worry about being stabbed, a glimmering shield appears, separating him from the rest of the world. Hooktooth resheathes his dagger as the group of aurors approaches.

“Did it escape you?” the auror at the helm asks, glancing into the alley, where he doesn’t seem to see Harry at all. “We tracked it here, but lost sight of it.”

One of the goblins harrumphes at him. “We have claimed the dementor as Gringotts property as per the 1481 treaty. Your presence is no longer required.”

The auror just shrugs at that. “I doubt my superiors will have a problem with that. We have enough of them in Azkaban already.”

After a few minutes of questioning, to which the goblin’s answer tends to be “I am not legally obligated to answer that,” the aurors seem to have enough for their reports. Another group of aurors joins soon them, and they begin to disapparate from the alley.

Hooktooth’s shield fades to allow Harry to be seen again. The goblins’ expressions are much too intent for Harry’s peace of mind. Attached to his chest, Tom is having a great time watching the whole spectacle. Harry wishes he could be as carefree.

“Mr. Potter,” says the goblin who had spoken with the auror, stepping forward. “We thank you for aiding us in this matter. How is it that you were able to kill a dementor?”

“I don’t know,” Harry replies. “I really don’t know.”

The goblin sheathes his dagger and the rest of them follow in suit, including Hooktooth. Harry has a feeling this goblin is someone to the rest of them, even if Harry doesn’t know how anything about goblin ranks. “If you are willing to make use of this special skill set of yours for us, Gringotts would be willing to share a small fraction of its wealth with you.”

Harry spares one second for feeling shocked, then decides this shouldn’t be much of a surprise. If goblins were sorted at Hogwarts, a number of them would likely be Slytherins. They’d earn some money from this, of which Harry would likely be lucky to get half, but on the bright side Harry would be getting paid to do what he’s supposed to be doing anyway. In addition, the goblins seem perfectly willing to conceal Harry’s skills from the ministry. Likely because they want to have sole access, but still.

“I’m interested,” Harry tells him.

The head goblin looks very pleased with that answer.

“I am willing to be Mr. Potter’s liaison in this matter, as I am the keeper of his vault,” Hooktooth quickly says, all _Mr. Potter_ now that his boss is here. Harry’s much more amused than insulted. It’s hard to be insulted at a young goblin who was willing to stand between him and a dementor, even if Harry wouldn’t have let him try it.

“Hooktooth is young, but her blade is sharp,” the head goblin muses. “Well?”

Harry looks between them, not sure that he’d like a goblin liaison, whatever that means. But if he has to have someone, better it be Hooktooth. Who is, apparently, a girl. Harry’s rather glad he hadn’t gotten the chance to put his foot in his mouth with that one. “That sounds good to me.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!
> 
> I'm also on tumblr as @[crownwithoutstones](https://crownwithoutstones.tumblr.com/) (new blog).


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